Political Quotes

On the recordMay 14, 2013
Madam President, there is no room for politics at the IRS. Senator McConnell is right. Senator Reid is right. They have both addressed it. The issue is the IRS has to be completely neutral in politics, but they do have to go after organizations and individuals who are not abiding by the rules, whether they are right, left, center or no ideology at all. I remember during the Bush years we saw the IRS targeting liberal churches. It was awful. They were harassing them and forcing them to show that they were nonprofits. Now we see the IRS has been targeting tea party groups. Whether they are targeting right or left, that is wrong, and anyone doing it, frankly, needs to get another job because that is against the law. We cannot have politically motivated audits or harassing people, whatever their politics may be. Here is what we do need. We do need a fair IRS that definitely looks at whether organizations, be they left or right, are truly deserving of tax-exempt status--that is important--but not targeting one group or another. We also know the targeting of the tea party groups took place while a Bush appointee was the head of the IRS, probably--perhaps was quite unaware. The bottom line is people at the top have to be held accountable. I agree with that. He should have known what was going on. But there is no room for this. I do believe there has to be serious action taken at the personnel level; otherwise, people will just go ho-hum.…
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Barbara Boxer
Democratic · California

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More from Barbara Boxer

Dec 9, 2016

The request would be to strip the rider out. My colleagues look perplexed. We have been talking about a 98-page rider that was added to the WRDA bill, and we have filed an amendment to do that. The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is not in order.

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Dec 9, 2016

Thank you. Unanimous Consent Request So on behalf of my friend from Washington and myself, I ask unanimous consent that we be allowed to offer an amendment to strip a rider that was placed on the bill by Kevin McCarthy in the House, and it…

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Dec 9, 2016

So I will continue to speak, and when I am done, I am done. It may be soon because I am getting a little tired, but I will keep talking for a while. I say to everybody that I am sorry, but don't drop a midnight rider on a beautiful bill…

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Dec 9, 2016

Madam President, I did not say this was a bad bill. I said this is a beautiful bill with a bad rider dropped on us. That was what I was talking about, the bill that was placed on top of WRDA. It is awful. The White House said: We do not…

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